Obscured by Clouds. The rough and ready blog of a cloud benighted biologist and amateur astronomer. Astroblog will cover my interests in astronomy, biology and Life, the Universe and Everything.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

My 2010 Geminids

I saw one. A very nice one, about as bright as Sirius. It shot over Taurus leaving a trail behind. I also saw two dim sporadics.

I got up at 2 am to watch the Geminids only to find clouds wandering over the sky. I got a nice postion to watch, and it was pleasantly warm, but after half an hour of increasing cloud I gave up. Still I got to see one Geminid.

Haven't seen too many reports on the web. Cloudbait over in the US has some nice pictures and animations. IceInSpace readers forums report roughly one ever 6 minutes, down from what I expected, but the Geminid Live site also shows fewer Geminids ( apeak of around 80/hr rather than 120/hr ZHR).

UPDATE: Spaceweather has links to lots of meteor pictures from this years shower.